Growing in the prophetic:

I have been on a journey of pursuing more of the prophetic and feel like there has been some growth in this area over the last few weeks.

For instance, two Sundays ago as I was sitting in church next to a lady, I began praying and asked the Lord for a word for her. I had this fleeting image of a chalk board with the lady writing on it. The image flashed in quickly and disappeared just as quickly. If I hadn't been sensitive to the still small voice or the quiet prompting of the Spirit, I would have missed it.

The next question for me was how do I give this word? Do I tell her simply that I think the Lord might have put this image in my head for her and did it mean anything to her? Or alternatively, I could ask her whether she was a teacher or had any inclination towards teaching. I chose the former mainly because I didn't want to give an interpretation that perhaps wasn't given to me by the Lord. When I shared it with her she became quite excited because she was doing some studies and was wondering whether she should change her focus and go into education. For her, this was a confirmation of the Lord giving direction.

The second occasion was last Sunday night. During the pre-service prayer, I begin to ask the Lord about the person I might be sitting next to in church and I had the impression of a woman having dark black hair with a Cleopatra style haircut. As I thought about this, at the same time I did an inventory of my body to see whether there was any pain as I was seeking a possible 'word of knowledge'. With the impression of this lady I sensed a slight pain to my upper right nostril around the sinus area.

I also had the impression of seeing a bloke in a checkered winter shirt sitting in front of me. This was later to prove not accurate.

As we went into the church service, Carole had earlier saved us a seat. As we went into our allocated seat, the person next to us was a woman with black straight hair in somewhat of a Cleopatra style cut. Even though it was not the perfect image that I had received, for me it was close enough to confirm the accuracy of the impression that I gained. After a period of time, I spoke to the woman and asked her if she had any sinus problem on the right side of the nose. She indicated that she had a sinus infection that affected both sides of her nose I asked if I could pray for her and she agreed. After I prayed I asked her if there's any way that she could check it out. She said 'yes'. And I said can you check it out now? She said yes, it's all clear!. This was a miraculous healing yet, she seemed to show no sign of great joy or excitement. I suppose that everyone reacts differently and I need to learn to just accept the fact that some people may not show a great deal of excitement even though the Lord performs a miracle on the body.

Both of these events were really encouraging for me and I suppose the next challenge for me is to continue to grow in this area and perhaps more particularly, to develop this out in the marketplace away from the safety of the church environment.